Chapter 11 - The House We Left Behind
The old house was forty minutes away.
I made it in twenty-six.
Brooks followed with two unmarked cars.
The place stood behind dead hedges and a sagging wooden fence. Emily and I had lived there during the first two years of our marriage. Noah took his first steps in the kitchen.
I hadn’t been back since the funeral.
The front door was open.
Inside, I smelled smoke.
“Dad!”
No answer.
We found him upstairs.
In Noah’s old nursery.
He was standing on a chair, pulling wires from the wall.
A small security camera lay smashed on the carpet.
I crossed the room and shoved him away from it.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving you.”
“From what?”
He pointed at the camera.
“That recording.”
Brooks picked it up.
“Memory card?”
My father stared at her.
“Destroyed.”
She opened the casing.
“No. Removed.”
I looked at him.
“Where is it?”
He sat down heavily.
“I don’t know.”
“You came here to destroy evidence and now you don’t know where the evidence is?”
“Someone beat me to it.”
A floorboard creaked behind us.
I turned.
My mother stood in the doorway.
She held a small plastic memory card between two fingers.
“Looking for this?”
My father stood.
“Margaret.”
She looked at me.
“Your father has lied long enough.”
We watched the footage downstairs.
Date: three days before Emily died.
Emily entered the nursery carrying a folder.
My father followed.
There was sound.
Clear sound.
“Give me the documents,” he said.
“No.”
“Emily, you don’t understand what Victor will do.”
“You’re scared of him.”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
She looked directly toward the nursery camera.
Then she said something that changed everything.
“Richard, tell Ethan who Celeste really is.”
I turned slowly toward my father.
He closed his eyes.
“What did she mean?”
My mother answered.
“Celeste isn’t Victor Ward’s daughter.”
May you like
I stared.
“She’s your father’s.”
